5 trends that will define design in 2013

2013 is going to be an exciting year for designers. We’ll be involved in the tight personalization of services across a connected web of content and devices. And we’ll be challenged to make several new experiences intuitive to users. Above all, the following five trends will have the most impact on what we do in the new year.

Contextual Design

Contextual Design will be the next “secret sauce” in digital marketing.

For those of you new to the notion of “contextual design”, imagine this scenario: You’re walking into BestBuy to shop for a new camera. You have your iPhone with you and location services are turned on. You’re phone “knows” you’re at Best Buy. You find a few cameras that seem like the perfect fit for your needs, but you’d like to see some reviews to be sure.

So you ask Siri on your iPhone for information on the new Nikon you’re holding in your hand. She returns data in the form of public reviews, reviews from your trusted friends on Facebook, information served from Best Buy on accessories and product details, and pricing from BestBuy, Amazon, and a local camera shop. You browse the information and confirm that this is the camera for you.

You could order the camera on Amazon because it’s five to ten percent less expensive than in the store, but because you are in Best Buy, and have accessed the data served to you through Siri from Best Buy, Best Buy decides to sweeten the deal buy sending you a “live” promotion in the form of a 15 percent discount on accessories for the camera if you purchase it from them while in the store today. Sold! You grab the gear, and make your purchase in store using your Best Buy Rewards app to apply the offer and collect your reward points.

Possible? Absolutely! Everything mentioned in this scenario is absolutely doable with today’s technology, but it hasn’t been designed or executed yet. The opportunity to supply users with contextually relevant content on the go is huge! What you do for your customers requires you to understand them and cater to them… which you should already be doing, right?

The Internet of Things

When we combine contextual design with the intelligent, web connected, stuff that exists around us, and we’ve got an extremely powerful source of data. Enter products like Twine, a simple, Internet-connected sensor that can be easily programmed through the web to collect data and send messages.

By using Twine to monitor a simple thing like the moisture level in your basement, you could be notified via text or email that your sump pump isn’t functioning properly. Combine this with a simple iPhone app and you could have an emergency preparedness system to protect your home while you’re away.

The Nest thermostat is a more developed example of this same concept. Capable of learning users’ preferences, Nest helps them control the temperature of their homes in a way that’s beautiful, simple, and powerful. By using Nest in their homes, consumers are already saving some serious money.

As we open our lives to these new connected devices, the “Internet of things” relevant to each of us becomes more diverse. Data in our day-to-day functions as human beings is captured, recorded, and processed. How that data is leveraged and used is up to us as designers and technologists. There are wonderful opportunities for this information to enhance our lives if we aren’t intimidated by devices watching and learning about how we live.

Responsive web design

This is an obvious one, but it still merits mention. Responsive web techniques will move from experimental to mainstream in 2013. A mobile-first approach with responsive web techniques will allow your consumers to access content in a contextually relevant way on their terms. For the enterprise, a responsive approach will allow for a more centralized management of content and help to mitigate desktop only or mobile only approaches to content delivery.

In your responsive approach it’s important to consider a system that is based on content first. It’s easy to get caught up in the graphical solution of your designs prior to considering the contextual relevancy of the content you are designing for. Therefore, design your experiences from the inside out. Work out the relevant content only, for a mobile user, a tablet user, and a desktop user. Leverage a consistent grid-system of your choice. Then, layer on the graphical solution. You’ll find that by taking this approach, you’ll have a flexible system that is serving content contextually important to your audience while still maintaining your brand experience.

Second screen experiences

Many have tried, but few have found great success with the second screen. The opportunity however, is too great to ignore. In 2013, the secrets of the second screen experience will be unlocked.

Content distributers and advertisers are constantly looking to differentiate their products. The challenge for a second screen option is in the focus of the viewer. Simply having content that enhances the experience on the big screen is interesting but has proven a challenge.

When watching a game on TV, I’m only interested in statistics during a break in the action. While watching a movie, I’m not interested in the depth of the character that I can look up on my iPad — I’m watching the movie! So how do content providers introduce the extraordinary amount of supplemental content to people in a way that doesn’t interfere with the primary viewing experience? Universal Mind is working closely with some exceptional content providers on this very thing! Stay tuned this year to see some exciting headway in this space.

A return to simplicity

The shifts at the executive ranks in Apple this fall may have an interesting effect on the design community in 2013. Skeuomorphism has been the preferred flavor of user interface design for Apple and many others for some time now, but there has always been a disconnect between the simple elegance of the hardware and the stylized UI metaphors of the OS and software.

With Jony Ive at the design helm on all things Apple (hardware and software), we’re likely see some shifts in the user interface appearance of the Mac OS, iOS, and Apple created applications. These shifts will drive a design trend towards Apple’s new UI design aesthetic — just as they’ve done in the past.

Simple, clean, UI design will make a strong presence this year. You can already see the influence of Microsoft’s Metro UI on applications both for Windows and other platforms. The focus of “content over chrome” is an approach that fits very well within the concepts of contextual design, mobile first, and responsive web.